The Ask and the Answer

“Viola,” I say, touching her non-banded arm.

“We haven’t got much time, Jess.” Mistress Coyle’s voice gets a little sterner, even as she says what must be the woman’s name. “Tell her.”

“Tell me what?” I say, getting a little annoyed. It’s cruel to keep her awake like this and I’m about to say as much when Mistress Coyle says, “Tell her who did this to you.”

Jess’s eyes grow frightened. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, oh.”

“Just this one thing and we’ll leave you be,” Mistress Coyle says.

“Mistress Coyle–” I start to say, getting angry.

“Boys,” the woman says. “Boys. Not even men.”

I take in a breath.

“Which boys?” Mistress Coyle asks. “What were their names?”

“Davy,” says the woman, her eyes not seeing the inside of the tent any more. “Davy was the older one.”

Mistress Coyle catches my eye. “And the other?”

“The quiet one,” the woman says. “Didn’t say nothing. Just did his job and didn’t say nothing.”

“What was his name?” Mistress Coyle insists.

“I need to go,” I say, standing up, not wanting to hear. Mistress Coyle grabs my hand and holds me there firmly.

“What was his name?” she says again.

The woman is breathing harshly now, almost panting.

“That’s enough,” Mistress Nadari says. “I didn’t want this in the first–”

“One second more,” Mistress Coyle says.

“Nicola–” Mistress Nadari warns.

“Todd,” says the woman on the cot, the woman I saved, the woman with the infected arm she’s going to lose, the woman I now wish was at the bottom of the ocean I’ve never seen. “The other one called him Todd.”

“Get away from me,” I say, as Mistress Coyle follows me out of the tent.

“He’s alive,” she’s saying, “but he’s one of them.”

“Shut up!” I say, stomping across the camp, not caring how loud I’m being.

Mistress Coyle races forward and grabs my arm. “You’ve lost him, my girl,” she says. “If you ever really had him in the first place.”

I slap her face so fast and hard she doesn’t have time to defend herself. It’s like smacking a tree trunk. The solid weight of her staggers back and my arm rings with pain.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, my voice blazing.

“How dare you,” she says, her hand to her face.

“You haven’t even seen me fight yet,” I say, standing my ground. “I knocked down a bridge to stop an army. I put a knife through the neck of a crazy murderer. I saved the lives of others while you just ran around at night blowing them up.”

“You ignorant child–”

I step towards her.

She doesn’t step back.

But she stops her sentence.

“I hate you,” I say slowly. “Everything you do makes the Mayor respond with something worse.”

“I did not start this war–”

“But you love it!” I take another step towards her. “You love everything about it. The bombs, the fighting, the rescues.”

Her face is so angry I can even see it in the moonlight.

But I’m not afraid of her.

And I think she can tell.

“You want to see it as simple good and evil, my girl,” she says. “The world doesn’t work that way. Never has, never will, and don’t forget,” she gives me a smile that could curdle milk, “you’re fighting the war with me.”

I lean in close to her face. “He needs to be overthrown, so I’m helping you do it. But when it’s done?” I’m so close I can feel her breath. “Are we going to have to overthrow you next?”

She doesn’t say anything.

But she doesn’t back down either.

I turn on my heels and I walk away from her.

“He’s gone, Viola!” Mistress Coyle shouts after me.

But I just keep walking.

“I need to go back to the city.”

“Now?” Wilf says, looking up at the sky. “Be dawn soon. T’ain’t safe.”

“It’s never safe,” I say, “but I have no choice.”

He blinks at me. Then he starts gathering ropes and bindings to get the cart ready again.

“No,” I say, “you’ll have to show me how to do it. I can’t ask you to risk your life.”

“Yer goin for Todd?”

I nod.

“Then Ah’ll take yoo.”

“Wilf–”

“Still early,” he says, backing the oxes into position. “Ah’ll at least get yoo close.”

He doesn’t say another word as he re-harnesses the oxes to his cart. They ask him Wilf? Wilf? in surprise at being used so quickly again after thinking their night of work was finished.

I think about what Jane would say. I think about putting her Wilf into danger.

But all I say is, “Thank you.”

“I’m coming, too.” I turn around. Lee is there, rubbing sleep out of his eyes but dressed and ready.

“What are you doing up?” I ask. “And no, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” he says, “and who can sleep with all that shouting?”

“It’s too dangerous,” I say. “They’ll hear your Noise–”

He keeps his mouth shut and says to me, Then they can just hear it.

“Lee–”

“You’re going to look for him, aren’t you?”

I sigh in frustration, beginning to wonder if I should abandon the idea altogether before I put anyone else in danger.

“You’re going to the Office of the Ask,” Lee says, lowering his voice.

I nod.

And then I understand.

Siobhan and his mum might be there.

I nod again, and this time he knows I’ve agreed.

No one tries to stop us, though half the camp must know we’re going. Mistress Coyle must have her reasons.

We don’t talk much as we go. I just listen to Lee’s Noise and its thoughts of his family, of the Mayor, of what he’ll do if he ever gets his hands on him.

Thoughts of me.

“You’d better say something,” Lee says. “Listening that close is rude.”

“So I’ve heard,” I say.

But my mouth is dry and I find I don’t have much to say.